


'til tides pull our hull aground

by killproof



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Keith (Voltron), Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, keiths just a dumbass, mlm author, pretty vague but its there, sort of brief but you fucking KNOW it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15583662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killproof/pseuds/killproof
Summary: Keith’s childhood is fractured with blurred-out edges, and it's partially his own fault. He made a point of forgetting old schools, old houses; finding nostalgia instead in redrock and tumbleweed and sandstorm-sharp wind.But he remembers the Garrison.





	'til tides pull our hull aground

**Author's Note:**

> title from “sons & daughters” by the decembrists 
> 
> the scene after keith watching the voltron show involves him having a panic attack if you'd like to skip it, it's not extremely detailed but it may be triggering

_“Hey, are you still there? You're cutting ou--”_

  
  
  


 

 

Keith has been running all his life.

This is what he remembers; when things went sour, he threw punches quick, packed a bag quicker, and was gone before the social worker turned up to tell him he needed to leave anyway. He remembers the man social services assigned to him, the way he always gripped Keith’s arm a bit harder than necessary and left the skin faintly purple.

(And if there was a spiteful little part of him that _hoped_ it caused his social worker more trouble each time he climbed out the window of the house he'd been tossed into that week, that was entirely his business.)

He managed to find a form of solace in the escape, small as it may have been─he _lived_ for the thrill that ran through him, sneakers screaming on the pavement as he rushed to get out, get far, get _away_ before his foster family that week even realized he was missing. He remembers kicking up dust somewhere in the desert, wind rushing in his ears as he sprinted out further, even if he was already miles away from that week’s house. He remembers the prickle of sand blowing into his face, knotting into his hair like he imagined snowflakes might.

But no matter how many times he ran, the world caught up to him.

Someone would find him─a park ranger, a police officer, his frustrated social worker himself─didn't matter. He always went along with them, resignation settled heavy in his chest and handcuffs chafing at his wrists, if they were really feeling like driving the _‘problem child’_ idea home this time.

Keith’s childhood is fractured with blurred-out edges, and it's partially his own fault. He made a point of forgetting old schools, old houses; finding nostalgia instead in redrock and tumbleweed and sandstorm-sharp wind.

But he remembers the Garrison.

 

✦

 

His career as a Galaxy Garrison cadet starts off with a bruised face, sore ribs, and a visit to the Dean’s office.

He squirms in the chair outside the door, straining for the muffled sound of voices behind the wall. The chair has a flat seat, metal-plated─like they know it makes visitors’ day that much worse to sit in them during the wait. Keith can hear an air conditioner humming somewhere down the hall, but the Arizona heat still permeates the room with a vengeance, and Keith is already sweating under the stiff polyester fabric of his uniform.

He can feel the boy in the other seat glaring at him from across the room.

His hands slowly curl into fists where they're settled on his knees, nails scraping against calloused palms. He thought that things had finally gotten better. For once, his life had felt…stable. He’d been lucky enough to have Shiro help him, and the gilded promise of enlistment at the Garrison had contributed to the anxious hope that maybe, _maybe,_ this time things would last. That he wouldn't have to leave, wouldn't have to take off past midnight and pretend it didn't leave an ache in his chest.

He should've guessed that it wouldn't last. There's always been a point where he snaps, where whatever replacement he's found isn't enough─ _the drop in his stomach at liftoff, the thrill that raises goosebumps on his skin_ ─and he has to fight, run, move on.

The bruise on his cheek aches. He’s already fought, this time. He doesn't want to think about what comes next.

The air conditioner buzzes brokenly in his ears. The thrum of it is too erratic for Keith to tune out─not a constant beat, but _bzzzzzz-chk-chk,_ silence, _bzzzzzzzz..._ stopping and starting back up again every few minutes. If it's such a prestigious institution, Keith wonders why they can't pay to fix an air conditioner.

He stares blankly at the wall across from him, waiting for the buzzing to slow again, but the sound is suddenly interrupted by the office door opening. Keith’s breath hitches in his chest, fists balling up tighter, and he stubbornly refuses to look up at where he knows Shiro is standing.

“Hey,” Shiro says after a long moment. Keith breathes in slow, steeling himself.

“Look, I know I messed up,” he says, shoving all the words out in one breath before he loses his nerve. “You should just send me back to the home already. This place isn't for me.” He can see how Shiro’s brow creases in his periphery, and ignores the guilt pooling in his stomach at his concern. A beat, then─Keith hears him shuffle, and suddenly he’s kneeling on the tiled floor in front of him.

“Keith,” he says softly, one hand settling over Keith’s smaller fist. “You can do this. I will never give up on you. But more importantly, you can't give up on _yourself.”_ Shiro tilts his head a bit to catch his eyes from under the curtain of his bangs, and smiles gently. Keith’s breath catches again; embarrassingly, he feels his eyes well up, and his clenched fist trembles under Shiro’s palm. Before he can try to stop it, tears are pouring hot down his cheeks, and he’s sniffling loudly in the quiet office lobby.

He braces himself for the anger that seems inevitable; after all those foster parents and social workers that told him not to cry, not to be so loud, he should’ve learned his lesson by now. He’s almost thirteen, why is he being such a _baby─_

“Oh, kiddo,” Shiro whispers instead, gathering Keith to his chest. He goes stiff, surprised─he expected a lot of things, but a _hug_ wasn’t one of them. Shiro doesn’t seem bothered by it; he smooths a hand down the curve of Keith’s spine, and Keith lets himself relax into it once his mind has fully processed that Shiro isn’t mad at him. His fists uncurl, clutching into the fabric of Shiro’s instructor uniform, and he buries his face in the crook of his shoulder, quieting down.

“I’m not giving up on you,” Shiro says into Keith’s hair. “I promise, Keith. I’m not leaving.”

Shiro isn’t the first one to tell him this, but he's the first one Keith believes.

 

✦

 

It's summer when the news comes in. Keith is splayed out on the couch in his dad’s old place, tank top shoved up to his ribs in an effort to fight off the desert heat─he'd arranged to stay in the house over the break, since Shiro would be gone on the Kerberos mission. It’d taken good amount of arguing and reassuring his brother that he could take care of himself to convince him to agree and not stick Keith with some babysitter, and though the months dragged by when he was on his own, it’s been strangely cathartic to have as much time alone as he does.

When the phone rings, the sound echoes through the entire house. Not that there's much house to speak of, in the first place, but it's loud and abrasive─old tech that could barely be called _tech._ Keith groans, the noise worsening the headache the heat has been giving him all morning, but peels himself up from the couch nonetheless and drags himself over to the phone.

“H’lo?” He mumbles into the receiver, pushing his sweat-damp bangs off his forehead with his free hand.

 _“Keith Shirogane?”_ A voice says on the other end, and he can tell that they’re reading his name off a list from the awkward pause between syllables.

“Yeah, that's me.”

 _“We’d like you to come down to the Garrison offices later this week.”_ Keith furrows his brow, frowning.

“Uh, why?” He asks. Classes don't start for another month, or he'd already be preparing for the move back into his dorm. Given that the administration had been so insistent that he couldn't stay there over the summer, he has no idea why they'd want him to report in early.

 _“There’s been a development with the Kerberos mission.”_ They say, so matter-of-fact it takes Keith a moment to process what it could mean. _“We’re having all the family members of the crew come down to deliver the news.”_

“What happened?” He asks, his knuckles pale in his grip on the receiver.

 _“I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to disclose that information,”_ they say coolly. _“Please be there by 10:30 this Tuesday.”_ The line goes dead without another word, dial tone droning into Keith’s ear. He stands there a while longer, phone still clutched in sweaty hands and the soles of his feet sticking to the floorboards, before he hangs up. He doesn’t know why, but the call leaves a feeling of dread pooling in his gut.

 

✦

 

The visit to Garrison offices begins and ends on a bad note.

He has to meet with Commander _Iverson,_ of all people─there’s only two other people in the small office when he walks in, who he vaguely recognizes as Colleen and Katie Holt, and it doesn't help much that his only buffer to interacting with Iverson are two strangers. He wishes Adam were here; it'd be nice to have someone he actually knows around, but he knows the situation is complicated, and he’s not entirely surprised that Adam wasn't invited to this meeting. Whatever the news is, it'll most likely be delivered to him separately.

(Keith still misses him, a little bit.)

Iverson hasn't shown up yet, and waiting for him is somehow worse. Keith winces internally at the memory of Iverson’s harsh yelling and criticisms from flight school, dreading his presence already.

“Hello,” Colleen says as he sits down, holding her hand out. “You must be Keith.” He blinks, a little surprised that she knows who he is. He shakes her hand firmly and quickly, then lets go.

“Yeah, I am,” he says. “You're, uh, Colleen and Katie Holt?” Colleen nods. Next to her, Katie gives him a short wave. Keith gives them both a nod, settling into the familiarly uncomfortable chair.

The door behind them clicks open not too long after, and Keith instinctively winces at the sound of heavy, boot-clad footsteps. He barely holds back a grimace as Iverson sits down in the chair across the desk, hands folded and eyes narrowed at the three of them like they’re students in trouble, not the family of prominent Garrison officers.

“I suppose you’ve already guessed why you’re here.” He says gruffly, perpetual frown still in place on his features. “I won’t beat around the bush─the Kerberos mission has failed.”

Keith freezes.

In his periphery, he sees Katie and Colleen go rigid in their chairs. Iverson either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and barrels on into an explanation and painfully insincere condolences that were probably scripted. Keith stays, breath caught in his chest, until the words _pilot error_ fall from Iverson’s mouth and he feels his blood go cold. The significance processes in Keith’s spiraling thoughts and he feels his fist reel back, almost out of his own body when his knuckles connect with Iverson’s eye.

They throw him out not two minutes later, leaving him with sore knuckles and a letter of expulsion. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, and he stands stiffly outside for a few long moments, the wind whipping harshly through his hair. He shakes his head like he's resetting an Etch-a-Sketch, walking mechanically over to his speeder and swinging a leg over the side, revving the engine.  The sun still hangs high overhead, and he drives off into the desert like he still has something to run from.

It feels less like escape and more like handcuffs, leaving red rings around his wrists.

 

✦

 

Everyone retreats after the incident with Alfor’s consciousness. Pidge, for the most part, holes herself up to work on purging the crystal venom from the Castle’s interface. Hunk helps pretty often, and otherwise Keith thinks he's forcing her to sleep and stress-baking. Lance is…somewhere. After their conversation since he got out of the healing pod, Keith doesn't care much to find him─it seems to be the way Lance prefers it, anyway.

It's dark when Keith wakes up. He doesn't have any sense of time, anymore; Hunk set the Castle lights to function on a day and night cycle to help a bit, but they'd all prefer clocks. All Keith knows is that the lights are on their night cycle, and he doesn't remember when he fell asleep.

His schedule has been erratic lately, which he doesn't think is too out-of-the-ordinary considering he's in _space_ right now. Usually, he's just train himself into exhaustion and stumble back to his room, but ever since the Gladiator malfunctioned, he's been wary of the training room. He'd rather play it safe and get the go-ahead from Hunk once he went through the training room wiring than succumb to his impatience and get his head bashed in with the bot’s staff.

He sighs, resigned to the fact that he probably isn't going to be able to get himself back to sleep anytime soon, and throws off his blankets, getting to his feet and making his way into the hall.

He wanders for a bit before he hits the control room, and when the doors slide open he finds he's not the only one having trouble sleeping.

“Princess,” he says, walking forward. Allura startles, turning quickly and relaxing when she sees Keith.

“Oh, it's just you.” She sighs as he makes his way toward the ledge she's sitting on, footsteps echoing in the near-empty room. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he points out, sitting down next to her on the steps. Allura laughs softly, pulling her knees to her chest.

“I suppose you've caught me there,” she mumbles. Keith can tell she hasn't slept much since the incident with Alfor; she's still dressed in the same pajamas, hair pulled back haphazardly as she stares out the wide window of the control room. Keith sees himself in her, suddenly─the deep exhaustion in her eyes and the tense set of her shoulders.

“I'm sorry about your father,” he says quietly, awkwardly laying a hand on her arm.

“Thank you,” she says, gaze still set forward. Keith frowns.

“I lost mine, too.” He says hesitantly. A beat, then─Allura looks up at him slowly, blinking. Keith gives her a pained smile. “I know that doesn't make this better, but…you're not alone.”

She stares at him for a long moment, long enough for him to wonder if he should've left her alone, but then she's reaching forward silently and taking his hand in a tight grip, her eyes watery. Her free hand comes up to clutch at the collar of his shirt, and Allura buries her face in the fabric, sobbing quietly. He lets her, patting her back at awkward intervals and letting her cry without comment or complaint until there's a wet spot on his shirt and she’s snoring quietly.

Keith sits there with her until the lights brighten to their day cycle, her fingers still woven through his.

Later, at breakfast, she catches his gaze across the table, mouthing a silent _‘thank you’,_ and he starts to think that space might not be so bad.

 

✦

 

Keith doesn't understand how, but somewhere along the line he's managed to become friends with Lance.

The realization goes a little like this: Lance collapses next to Keith on the couches after a battle, arm slung easily around his shoulders, and leans his head against Keith’s like it's the most natural thing in the world.

“Whew,” he sighs, eyelids slipping shut. “I am _beat,_ dude.” His cheek presses against Keith’s temple, hot and sweaty and less gross than it should be. He’s still leaning heavy against Keith, warm and real through the fabric of his flight suit where he'd discarded plates of armor, and for once, Keith doesn't shy away from the contact. He relaxes against the press of Lance’s skin to his hair, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder where it burns through his armor and rolling his eyes.

He hopes Lance can't hear the heavy thump of his heart beating in his chest, feels like the sound echoes into the empty room around them and presses straight into his eardrums, suffocating. But Lance just gives his shoulder a playful shove, wiggling his arm where it’s pinned against the couch by Keith’s back so he can drop both hands to his lap. He sighs again─this time it sounds bone-deep, like it came from seven lungfuls of air─and melts back against the couch like water spilling. He turns his head back towards Keith, giving him a tired smile.

“Crazy stuff goin’ on, huh?” He says, running a hand through his helmet-hair. Keith scoffs.

“Understatement. Fighting an alien empire in sentient lions isn't exactly how I imagined my future,” he says drly, starting to undo the armor on his wrists.

“You can say that again,” Lance mutters as Keith begins accumulating a pile of armor pieces on the floor in front of him. Keith hears him shift on the couch next to him. “Hey, need some help with that?” He offers. Keith glances up at him, finding Lance’s brown eyes looking at him expectantly.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He says. Lance leans forward, tugging at the collar of his chestpiece and pulling up. Keith takes the hint, raising his arms to shimmy the heavy plating up over his head, leaving him only in his flight suit waist-up. He makes quick work of his leg armor while Lance undoes his own, then helps Lance tug his own chestpiece off in return.

“Well,” Lance says as he pulls the last pieces of plating off. “Guess space isn't so bad as long as you've got friends.” Keith peers at him curiously.

“We’re friends?” He asks, genuinely surprised. Lance turns to him, lips turned down slightly at the corners.

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” he retorts, his tone joking, but the smile he plasters on is nervous and fake, and Keith can see through it.

“It's not,” he says quickly. “I’d…like to be friends. If you want.” He admits. Lance stares at him for a moment, and he's nervous that he read the whole thing wrong and Lance is going to tease him from here right back to the Milky Way─

But then the corners of his mouth twitch up and wide, blazing grin spreads over Lance’s cheeks. His nose wrinkles, the corners of his eyes drawing up, shining star-bright at the compliment, and it burns through Keith like a forest fire, ripping down every semblance of sanity and tunneling his vision until all he sees is _Lance_ ─smiling with those slightly crooked incisors and soft lips, a freckle caught on the corner of his cupid's bow.

“Well, look at that,” Lance says, smile spilling into his voice. “Mullet likes me after all.” The name doesn't sound like an insult anymore, not when Lance is looking at him like that.

“You're the one who doesn't like _me,”_ he retorts. It comes out a little more sincere than he intended, and he catches the moment when Lance hears it too, sees the flicker of guilt in his eyes.

“Nah,” Lance says after a moment, a tentative smile curling at his lips. “I like you just fine.”

 

✦

 

The moment Red lands in her hangar after the trip back from the Marmora base, Keith is gone.

He ignores Shiro’s calls from behind him, storming past the other paladins where they had gathered by the doorway and sprinting down the hall towards his room. His ribs protest, aching, the slash over his shoulder still stinging. It had already clotted by the time he got to the castle, the blood drying stiffly into the dark material of his suit, and he’s more than glad to peel the armor off once he gets to his room.

He immediately engages the lock function on the door, anticipating Shiro coming to play the role of the concerned guardian and try to drag him to a pod, or attempt to have some sort of _talk_ about what happened at the base. Normally, Keith would at least humor him, but he's not stupid. He saw the look in Shiro’s eyes when Kolivan had told Keith he had Galra blood. Even if he hadn't, he's not naïve enough to think that spending a year in Galra captivity wouldn't give him some….negative associations, at the very least.

Keith collapses onto his bunk, ridding himself of the rest of the suit and kicking it to the floor, still struggling a bit to catch his breath. The Blades had done a number on him in the Trial; in retrospect, he feels sort of stupid for going through all of it, in the first place. The interruption to the mission, the bruised ribs, the wound on his shoulder more than likely to scar─all because he was being stubborn.

His breathing evens out, ribs still aching, and he sits up and leans over to retrieve his knife from the discarded pile of armor. The luxite is cool on his skin, and it gleams in the soft light of his room as he turns it over in his hands. Keith knows every scratch and scuff on this blade, knows how the hilt settles in his hand better than he ever knew his mother─his _Galra_ mother─and it feels like betrayal that the one constant in his life has become the thing that has brought everything he thought he knew crashing down around him.

The thing is, nothing about him has truly changed. His veins pulse red and he _knows_ it, has the proof of nosebleeds and skinned knees and purple-blue bruises to prove it. He hasn't sprouted Galra ears or turned purple since the revelation, and his teeth have remained as dull and human-like as ever. Nothing about him says _Galra,_ a fact backed by the seventeen years he spent without any knowledge of that side of his heritage, but he knows about it now. He _knows,_ and he can't get rid of it.

He may be the same person, but the cautious way Shiro had looked at him is not the same. He knows the looks on his other teammates’ faces won't be the same, either─Allura and Coran in particular. As supportive as they are, people’s limits tend to include the progeny of imperialist aliens, especially when those people are currently at _war_ with the aforementioned aliens.

Keith curls his knees to his chest, pulling the blanket over himself to shield from the coldness of space the Castle’s metal walls never helped with. He lets out a sigh, chest feeling hollow and sore, and lets sleep overtake him.

 

✦

 

Keith is sitting out on the far edges of the city, a breeze washing over him as he stares out along the treeline of the forest. Even though he knows it's just for the teludav, he's really glad they got the chance to come back to Olkarion─the others might be more excited about the high-tech stuff the Olkari have, but this is one of the few planets they've come across that feel similar to Earth. The forest is actually green, with brown trunks and tree bark, and the golden sunshine feels familiar enough for Keith to ignore the two suns in the sky.

“Oh, there you are.”

Keith recognizes the voice, glances back towards Lance and is struck by the sight of him, brown skin washed in warmth and eyes green-gold in the piercing alien sunlight of Olkarion. Lance smiles when their eyes meet, walking up to the ledge next to him.

“Uh, yeah,” Keith says, averting his gaze to the horizon quickly, nervous that Lance will notice how his eyes linger on his lips just a few seconds too long. “I wanted to see the sunset. Thought it might be like Earth.” He explains. Lance nods, following his gaze out to where the twin suns are slowly drawing closer to the treetops.

“Sounds cool,” he says. “Mind if I join?” Keith nods, and Lance gives him a pleased smile, settling down next to him. He braces his arms behind him, legs dangling off the edge and swinging idly. Keith’s are criss-crossed neatly, a habit he’d never shaken from primary school days. He watches the blue on Lance’s sneakers glint each time his feet swing out of the ledge’s shadow, trying not to think about why Lance was looking for him in the first place.

“Why were you looking for me?” He asks anyway. Lance stiffens slightly, turning to Keith in surprise.

“Uh,” he says lamely. “I mean─everyone else was checking out the teludav, and they were using some fancy science jargon…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn't get it, anyway. This seemed like a better use of my time.” Keith narrows his eyes. Lance doesn't seem like he's lying, but…it feels like there’s something missing. Something he isn't telling him.

“Makes sense,” he says after a moment, deciding to let it go. “I wouldn't have gotten it, either.” Lance laughs dryly, looking down at his feet.

“Yeah, sure. They would've wanted _you_ around regardless.” He says, almost bitterly. Keith winces slightly.

“They know my strengths, and none of them are _‘fancy science jargon’,”_ he points out. He pauses, looking at the frown that twists at Lance’s profile, and adds: “You have them too, y’know. Strengths.” Lance stops swinging his feet, blinks, and looks back at Keith.

“What?” He asks, confused.

“You're the best shot on the team,” Keith says, more determined now. “You're the only one who can think up plans─ _good_ plans─on the fly, you help lighten the mood when people start to freak out, you _found_ the Blue Lion─” he stops for a second, watching Lance gape at him as he takes in everything he said. “You're the reason any of us are even _here,_ Lance.”

Lance’s breath hitches softly, and he stares at Keith for what feels like an eternity.

“Wow,” he finally says, his voice an awed whisper. “Who are you and what have you done with Keith Shirogane?” Keith snorts, punching him lightly on the arm.

“Shut up,” he says gruffly, his cheeks hot. Lance laughs, playfully punching him back. 

“Thanks, though.” He says after a moment, smiling softly at Keith. “It means a lot.”

“Don't mention it,” Keith replies, breathless.

The suns dip below the treeline in front of them, the dark of night creeping into the orange glow sunset left in the sky, and Keith takes an indulgent moment to watch the patches of light dance over Lance’s face.

 

✦

 

By now, Keith has spent enough time forming Voltron to be able to tell that the lions feel different. He feels their presence, along with the subtle pulse of his teammates’ own presences, at the back of his mind when they're in Voltron; catches glimpses of their energy.

Red has always felt fiery, fast─just like Allura told him. As they'd grown closer that fire started to draw closer to him, like Red’s aura was a blanket that he draped around Keith just a little more each time he proved himself. Red was stubborn, insistent, and _infuriating,_ but he felt familiar. Like home.

The second the Black lion’s jaw closes behind him, he knows things will different.

Black’s energy vibrates around him as we walks toward the cockpit doors, something large and imposing. It feels like being flung back to when he first met Shiro─back when he was thirteen and small even for his age and Shiro was _Takashi Shirogane,_ the Garrison’s golden boy─Keith feels the same inexplicable need to impress rise in his chest, the need to break through the intimidating shell of Black’s aura and leave his mark, show that he was _good enough, finally_ ─

He’s almost shaking when he sits down in the pilot’s chair. The controls are spread out in front of him, dull purple in the low light of the cockpit, and the setup is almost identical to Red’s but it feels fundamentally _wrong._ Every fiber of him is screaming to get out now, that he doesn't belong here and he _knows_ it, but he can't. He has to try.

For Shiro, he has to try.

He takes a deep, steadying breath, reaching out to curl his hands around the controls. They feel different from Red’s, somehow─maybe it's just the fact that the cockpit isn't lighting up around him, but it throws him off either way. He closes his eyes, eyebrows pulling together tightly, and prays to every god he remembers the name of that he won't be the Black Paladin.

Keith should probably know by now that he's never gotten what he prayed for.

 

✦

 

Everything changes after that. He gets used to how Black’s controls light up violet under his hands. He adjusts to how the other paladins start looking to him when they need a plan. Keith improvises, does his best with what he has─he's not unfamiliar with being thrown into new situations, and he's learned to adapt by now.

One of the more startling developments that come from his new role on the team is Lance coming to him for advice.

_Lance._

They've come a long way since that night in the desert, the five of them on Keith’s speeder with Lance screaming bloody murder at him as he drove off a cliff. They went from rivals to sort-of-friends to hanging out, but he's never come to Keith with anything serious. Keith does his best to be realistic about his place in people’s lives, and he knew better than to think that he was on Lance’s list of people to go to in a crisis.

But, evidently, becoming Black Paladin changed that.

It feels empty. Unearned. Lance fidgets when he talks to Keith, his eyes darting away every now and then, and Keith knows it's because they're skipping forward. Lance isn't quite ready to go to Keith with things like this, Keith isn't quite ready to be the person he goes to.

Once the door closes behind Lance, Keith groans, falling backwards onto his bunk. _Leave the math to Pidge?_ He thinks, incredulous at his own words. _What the fuck is that supposed to mean?_ He buries his face in his hands, pushing the conversation from his mind and trying not to overthink every detail, every nuance, the way Lance had looked so _nervous_ when he came in and did he really not trust Keith enough yet─

He sighs, dragging his hands back down his face. Maybe he should’ve expected this freakout. He should’ve had it a couple of months ago, probably, given that he’s self-aware enough to know that he has a crush on Lance the size of planet Jupiter. But recently things have felt...different. Neither of them have really changed, not fundamentally, but the pull in Keith’s chest when Lance smiles hooks itself deeper, and he’s stopped being able to control what his thoughts linger on.

It doesn't feel like just a crush anymore.

The teachers at the Garrison had called him unpredictable, but Keith never thought that was true. He tended to push risky moves as far as he could, sharp turns in small spaces and simulated nosedives, but the thing was─he always pulled up before he hit the ground.

But Lance isn't the ground.

He's the sea, and Keith is hurtling towards him, unbidden.

 

✦

 

Moving from the Castle to the Blade of Marmora is…jarring, to say the least. Beyond the change from blue-and-white to dark purple walls and lights, the Blade base feels eerily silent in comparison to the castle. Keith had usually been able to hear a soft hum from the castle walls, the distance voices of the other paladins, the mice squeaking in the air vents─there was always _something._ But the Blade members are alarmingly stoic in comparison to what Keith is used to, and the cycles feel that much more silent when he’s so _aware_ of the lack of noise in the barracks and halls.

Keith is adjusting, though. He always does eventually. He’d stayed with Voltron longer than he’d stayed at any foster home, so the jump feels bigger than ever, but he refuses to give up on being a member of the Blade just because he feels _homesick,_ of all things.

He thinks the other Blades can tell, though. Either that, or they're too intuitive for their own good.

When they go on missions to sectors and planets Voltron has reached, they’ve started bringing him back memorabilia of the Paladins. It’d been a shock when M’ral had silently dropped a tiny figurine of Shiro onto his lap during a meeting, but it’s become more and more frequent ever since. At this point, he’s come to anticipate it─he has his hands out for the gift when Blade members he knows come back from missions, and pretends he doesn't see the knowing smirk on their faces when they drop whatever Voltron merchandise they’d gotten into his cupped hands.

After all that, it shouldn't be a surprise when Reyev bursts into the barracks, the Voltron Show playing on their communicator, and settles right in front of Keith’s bunk.

“Really?” Keith says, unamused, watching Allura and Hunk dramatically fend of a cardboard robeast over Reyev’s ears. “The keychains weren't enough?”

“Come on, cub, you were a paladin for months.” Reyev says, shooting him a grin. Keith’s nose wrinkles at the nickname─something the other Blade’s refused to drop on account of his height─and jabs his knee into Reyev’s shoulder. Then his gaze is wandering back to the screen and his breath is catching in his throat because _fuck, there’s Lance._

However long he’s spent away from Voltron has evidently been not _nearly_ enough time to smother his debilitating crush on Lance Álvarez, because the second he sees him on the screen─all wide heroic smiles and broad shoulders and _fuck─_ Keith feels a familiar heat rushing to his cheeks and his heartbeat pounds against his ribcage. He doesn't even have the mental capacity to process how Reyev is probably filing his reaction away and he’s about to be flooded with Red Paladin merch, because all at once he realizes how painfully he’s missed Lance. Shiro and the rest of the team too, of course, but the sight of Lance in particular leaves a distinct melancholy laying heavy in his chest that’s different than the brief sadness he’d felt with the other paladins.

“Oh, man,” Reyev says gleefully. “Do you─?”

“No,” Keith says firmly before they can finish, and shuts off the communicator.

 

✦

 

Keith doesn't realize what he tried to do until it's over.

The light almost blinds him when the barrier falls. It's bright, _bright_ red, exploding in fireworks against his retinas, and he winces. His arm raises reflexively to shield his eyes, squeezed shut with brows drawn and muscles bracing for impact. It takes the sight of the ship’s hull, looming and solid in front of him, to realize what happened.

Someone else broke the barrier. His ship is still intact─ _he’s_ still intact.

The flash of light fades slow, refracting off the viewport glass in a wide spray. There's a moment of silence, so stock-still he can hear his own labored breathing, and then the comms erupt in his ear. The rebels are loud, cheering triumphantly, overlapping and blending into a knotted mess that he doesn’t have the time nor capacity to pick apart. Keith shuts off his link to their side of the communications line, and the noise cuts out abruptly, leaving him in the silence of his cockpit. He registers the ringing in his ears, steadily building, and slowly raises his hands to his them, knuckles pressing in roughly. It doesn't do much in the way of helping─ _being one foot from a direct hit to a barrier will do that to you,_ he thinks, letting his hands drop to the control panel.

He looks down, eyes skimming over each hand, counting over his fingers─an instinctual check after close calls, making sure he isn't dreaming. He flexes his hands where they lie against the helm, curling and uncurling his fingers, feeling the smooth fabric of his suit move with them.

 _One foot from a direct hit,_ he reminds himself, breathing in sharply. _Could've been a lot closer._

The thought is not comforting.

His fists clench once more, nails pressing through the fabric of his gloves into his palm in sharp crescents.

He feels clumsily for his own pulse, half-terrified that none of this is _real,_ that it's all some strange fever dream while he waits for purgatory─but it's there, rabbit-quick and erratic under his skin.

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, because he’s─he’s _alive,_ against all odds, against his own (frankly terrible) luck, but he's also very suddenly struck with the realization that he almost died. Almost _sacrificed himself,_ and was very much okay with doing so.

 _I'm going to throw up,_ he thinks dizzily. Bile sticks to the back of his throat, edging bitter onto his tongue, and he hunches over the control panel, shaking.

 _“Is everyone alright?”_ Shiro’s voice echoes from the speaker, messy and distant against the ringing in his ears. Keith’s breaths come quick and shallow, stifled clumsily by the hand pressed tight to his mouth. He distantly hears the others responding, a tinge of relief briefly coloring the panic ripping through him, but he barely registers any of it until he hears his name.

 _“Keith?”_ Pidge’s voice cuts through, hesitant and careful, like she isn't sure whether or not he's there in the first place. _“Everything good on your end?”_

“I…y-yeah,” he says after a moment. “Yeah, I'm fine. See you in a bit.” He says, and shuts off his connection to the comms with no further comments, hands shaking as they return to the controls.

“It's okay,” he whispers to himself, voice raw. “It's okay. You're okay."

Keith repeats it to himself until he thinks he can believe it, and flies back to base.

 

✦

 

Kolivan gives him leave a few weeks later, sending him back to the Castle with a communicator and strict orders to leave in a quintant.

Keith suspects that the other Blades (possibly Antok, definitely M’ral) have been annoying him about giving him a break. He’s not much younger than the newest of them by Galra standards, but the disparity in height between him and the other Blade has garnered him a reputation as the baby of the group. Something about things smaller than them makes people go soft, he guesses. Regardless, he’s sort of glad to be back somewhere familiar.

A knock on his door startles him out of his thoughts, and he disengages the lock, letting it hiss open and reveal Lance standing in the doorway.

“Oh, hey.” He says, surprised despite himself that Lance is seeking him out.

“Hey,” Lance replies, smiling hesitantly as he steps through the doorway, door sliding closed behind him. “Allura told us Kolivan was giving you a vacation, so I thought I'd come and see for myself.” He explains, lips quirking up into a surer smile. Keith laughs softly.

“I’d hardly call it a vacation,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Coran’s probably thinking of the million ways I could be cleaning the Castle as we speak.” Lance’s grin pulls wider at that, letting out a laugh of his own.

“Better than the Blade, though, right?” He prods, tilting his head and smiling down at Keith. “What’d you get up to there, anyway? You’ve been gone for a while,” he points out. His smile looks a little faker as he says the last part. Keith purses his lips, tensing slightly at the reminder of the Blade’s particularly treacherous missions, all the lost teammates he never learned the names of.

“I guess so,” he says instead, shrugging and averting his eyes from Lance’s steady stare. “Kolivan made sure I was up to the task before he sent me out on any bigger missions, so there was a lot of…training…” He says, trailing off when he feels fingertips brushing his cheekbone, and his gaze darts back toward Lance to see him with one hand extended, carefully tucking a piece of Keith’s hair that had fallen in his eyes behind his ear.

Their eyes catch on one another; Lance seems to realize what he’d been doing─almost like it was subconscious─and jerks his hand back, smiling sheepishly.

“Ah, sorry.” He says, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets, looking away with something that seems like guilt shining in his eyes.

“S’fine,” Keith breathes. It doesn’t seem to soothe Lance’s nerves any, his shoulders still hunched and gaze darting around the room nervously. _“Lance.”_

Lance looks back toward him, finally, and suddenly anything Keith was about to say is wiped from his brain and the one _stupid_ thought left is _‘wow, his eyes are really pretty’_ (they are, in this light they look like dark, melting amber, but that isn’t the point). Keith opens and closes his mouth a couple times, rendered useless by eye contact with his crush of all things, and Lance lets it go on for a few moments before he’s raising an eyebrow at Keith in silent question and Keith just. Breaks.

It’s like his body moves without permission, one hand reaching out to wrap around the back of Lance’s neck, drawing him in slow enough that he can see how his eyes widen when he realizes what Keith’s doing. Their lips brush together gently; Lance’s are soft against Keith’s chapped mouth, and every atom of his body is begging him to move closer and feel and touch and taste but he _can’t._ People may say it about him but in this moment, Keith knows that he is not brave.

He pulls away after a bare few seconds, turning his face away so he doesn’t have to see Lance’s expression. His hands ball together at his sides, legs itching to run. There’s a beat of silence, then─

“...Why did you do that?” Lance asks, voice quiet and choked in his throat.

“I don’t know.” _I needed to._ “Sorry.” _I love you so much I think it’s killing me._

“It’s okay,” Lance says after another long moment. Then he’s brushing past Keith, the door to his room hissing open, and Keith is left alone in the silence.

 

✦

 

Keith has been waiting eighteen years to meet his mother. A good part of those years has been spent building himself up to this moment, mentally drafting and editing a long speech on how it was shitty of her to leave and how angry he is, but now he’s actually _here─_ staring the woman who gave birth to him in the face─and he….

He has absolutely no idea what to say.

The urgency of the situation decides the next step for him; sirens begin to blare on the ship, and he and Krolia make a run for his jet, barely sliding in before sentries converge on the hangar. Keith’s wrists twist uncomfortably with the jolt as they speed away from the ship, hands curled solid around the controls. Somehow, the most familiar thing about all of this is how he flies.

Krolia is a silent, looming presence behind him for the first few minutes─it drags on, needling at his senses almost worse than noise might, and he tries to focus on the texture of his gloves stretching over his knuckles instead.

“I'm sure you must have questions,” she finally says, and Keith takes a petty sort of joy in the fact that guilt is palpable in her voice. Nonetheless, he presses down the bitter scoff that bubbles up in his throat; a lot of things have changed about their situation, now. The time when he thought his mother was human and left because she wanted to is far removed from now, where his mother is purple with marks slashing over her cheeks and part of an intergalactic war effort. The bullet-point list of questions for her, over the years, has changed from _did you leave because you didn't like me?_ and _why won't Dad tell me anything about you?_ to _how did you get to Earth?_ and _why am I not purple?_

Instead of any of that, Keith blurts out, “How did you recognize me?” There’s a beat of silence, then, “Besides my knife, I mean.” He hears Krolia let out a soft laugh behind him.

“You have the same eyes.” She says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “They were the only thing you inherited from me, I guess. It wasn't hard to make the connection.” Keith purses his lips, staring down at the control panel. He flips on autopilot and stands up, turning to face Krolia.

“You're not─aren't you going to ask me why I'm a boy?” He bites out. Part of him is almost angry about it; all these years he's been building himself up for this giant, angry conversation when he finally met his mother, and now here she is. Here she is, with reasons for leaving and calm acceptance that she has a son and not a daughter. She blinks down at him in surprise, as if _this_ was the part she didn't expect.

“When you were a baby, I always thought you smelled like a Galran boy.” She muses, tilting her head curiously at him. “When your father gave you a human girl’s name, I passed it off as a difference between species, but I often wondered if I was wrong.” A smile quirks at her mouth, a fanged canine pressing into her bottom lip. “It seems as though I was.”

“Oh,” Keith says dumbly. “Yeah, you were.”

“Yes,” Krolia agrees, nodding. “Though, I am guessing you no longer use the name your father chose for you.” Keith shakes his head.

“No, I, uh…” He folds his arms over his chest, feeling for all the world like he’s back in front of Shiro, coming out for the first time all over again. “My name’s Keith.”

“Keith,” Krolia says, testing it out on her tongue. “It's very nice to meet you.” She holds out a hand towards him. The smile she offers is stiff and more than a little awkward, but Keith sees himself in it, and for the first time, he’s completely sure that his mother had always loved him.

He takes her hand, smiling.

 

✦

 

Of all the things that have happened to him in space, Keith unilaterally decides that fighting Shiro has been the worst.

A small voice at the back of his head reminds him that it's not _really_ Shiro. Not Shiro who told him how he should never have taken him in, should've seen how worthless he was. Not Shiro who came at him swinging without any of the care he took in sparring sessions not to hurt Keith.

It doesn't make any of it hurt less.

The structure of the ship shudders above him, vibrations rolling through his muscles like a shockwave. He hears the scrape of metal around him as parts of it break off and fall into the swirling void below, the piece he’s holding onto creaking dangerously above him.

Shiro is a dead weight on his arm, and his muscles are starting to ache from holding the both of them up. The mark on his cheek burns _─_ he can still feel the phantom heat of Shiro’s blade washed over his face, sees the neon purple glow tracing his peripheral vision. Every inch of his body is sore, his likely-broken ribs protesting every time his body vibrates with the force of the shattered ship’s movement, and Keith has never been more exhausted in his life. If he had the energy for it, he’d probably be crying right now, but instead he just lets his gaze wander blankly into the blanket of midnight that wraps around him and Shiro. Two small dots against an endless expanse of void.

Keith wants nothing more than to get out of here; the situation looks fairly grim from his perspective, but he’s been through a lot grimmer lately and come through fairly unscathed. He thinks it's a little like walking over coals─no matter how high the temperature is, you won't get burned half as badly if you can run fast enough.

Keith has been running all his life.

When he closes his eyes, he knows he's finally ready to stop.

  
  
  
  
  


_“--eith? Keith, can you hear me?”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog](http://killproof.tumblr.com/post/176679648958/til-tides-pull-our-hull-aground) this fic if you liked it n check me out on tumblr!


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